intensive care unit
by EK
Summary: COMPLETE. Honoka is tasked to do the LAST thing she wants to do: care for a hated person. Spoiler and retake for the ending, prequel to Tenshi.
1. Chapter 1

Hiya. Quite a while no see. Thanks for reading.

Disclaimers: I do NOT claim to be an expert at the kind of things I will describe here. I'm just a lowly medical student on OJT and trying to cope with seeing too many flatlines and unresponsive individuals than I would like. I own nothing except this story and the wasted time I could have spent studying about reading ECGs. Finally, as this comes just a little bit before the events in "Tenshi", this is SPOILER and retake of the end of the series, be warned. Remember I'm one of the fans who still refuses to believe the obvious.

………………………………..

The news came to them from above, and it was spread faster than lightning.

The capital had fallen. The usurping leader of the region was dead.

The people in the refugee village eagerly awaited the arrival of the reconnaissance team that followed the samurai into Kanna village. The Shikimoribito always did that, wanting to be always abreast of the recent developments in the world around them. Also, they wanted to find anyone who still needed medical treatment when the battle was through.

It was a guiding principle within the territory of the Shikimoribito to help those who needed it, no matter on which side of the conflict they were on. This was the reason for the existence of the refugee village within the caves, a safe haven for any and all who needed protection. Thus, it had become a custom for the Shikimoribito to pick up the wounded in battle, if they saw that they could be helped or cured.

The villagers were used to this. They were also more than eager to help those involved in the battle that freed them from the current tyrannical rule. As the transport vehicle hummed to a stop at a platform, the villagers crowded around, ready with bandages, herbal medicine, food, and water.

Honoka was there, too, wanting news of any kind about all the samurai. Well, maybe just their leader in particular, Kanbei-sama, truth be told. She breathed a deep sigh of relief that he was not among the wounded that the Shikimoribito brought in. One of the hooded men told her that Kanbei-sama was at the village square, gathering the farmers and assessing the damage. She was glad.

Her sister Mizuki ran to the scene. Being new to the village, this was all a curious sight to her, and she wanted to be of service in any way. But as she came closer to the three wounded men, she stopped and gasped at the last one. "NO! How did this happen!"

Honoka was soon beside Mizuki. She, too, gasped, and held her hand over her gaping mouth.

It was a young man that she saw. He was unconscious, more dead than alive, as he was carried on a stretcher to a makeshift clinic. His face was scarred by debris and darkened by soot. Her sister had recognized the clothes more than the face: a brown coat below a leather jacket with many pockets, a leather cap that covered most of his red-orange hair.

It was him, the only one she never got along with. The one who directly called her a traitor.

But she could not seem to walk away. Instead, she walked slowly, as if in a nightmare, nearer to the where the young man was carried.

One of the attendants tore open the jacket, and revealed a brown coat soaked in fresh blood. Another patch of blood soaked his hair, when they took off the cap. His lips were almost white now, so pale they were, and his hands were yellow and cold. His chest was not even heaving. A leader among the Shikimoribito gave orders left and right to clean the wounds and to stabilize the young man.

Everyone in the village had liked him, this young man in the brown coat and brown cap, while the samurai were there among them. She had laughed at his jokes, too. From all the stories Mizuki told when she arrived at the refugee village, Honoka could tell that her sister liked him a lot as well. He was nice, always smiling, and always helpful, so it seemed.

But from the beginning, she was suspicious of him, more than the other samurai. He seemed to be like her. He knew more than he was willing to tell. And he showed her that he did.

Why was he there? Why was he wounded? …Why did she care?

"Nee-san…Nee-san….it's….it's….it's him…" her sister stammered.

"Yes, Mizuki, I see that," she said, icily.

"What…what do we do, nee-san?"

"I don't know."

A large group of the hooded men dropped from ropes overhead and inspected the new arrivals. They talked to the first two of the wounded, and soon they were carried off for more treatment. But they formed a tight circle around the third, as they listened intently at the hooded one nearest the bed, obviously a man with medical training. He pointed at specific areas at the wounded man's body. He nodded at some questions, and shook his head at others.

The villagers were beginning to be worried for the state of the wounded samurai. The conversation between the Shikimoribito was taking longer than usual. Many of them were shaking their heads more often than they were nodding them. They were more than relieved when one of the hooded men finally asked the elder among the villagers to approach them for instructions.

Honoka was as curious as everyone else. What was taking them so long to decide his fate? What was wrong with him? What needed to be done? Again, why did she even care?

The elder bowed to the hooded men, and left their circle. He walked to where the villagers were, and he was soon encircled by them.

"The Shikimoribito have spoken," the elder told the assembly. "He is in quite a terrible state; right now he is quite close to death. But he will be treated, and allowed to stay here."

Many sighs and smiles broke through the crowd.

But Honoka stepped forward. "Wouldn't it be more merciful to end his pain…and let nature run its course?" she asked, as she looked away and kept a stiff lip.

"Do NOT kill him off yet, Honoka!" the elder glared at her.

The young woman lowered her head. "I beg your forgiveness, dear elder."

The elder looked the young man, then at her. He grinned. "You do realize you have committed insubordination, do you not?"

"But…but…elder…I…"

"As punishment for your insolence," he continued, with a smile, "and as punishment for your, erm, previous offenses, you are ordered to care for this samurai, personally."

Her eyes widened.

The realization of what she was being made to do came quickly. Other wanderers had come before the samurai and farmers. She had been asked to care for others in delicate health before. It involved checking pulse rate and breathing, giving medicines, scooping up food, even cleaning after them.

But this was different, very different. Honoka remembered the heavy breathing at the back of her neck, the terrible awareness of a sword over her head, and the deadly voice that calmly asked if he should proceed to behead her. There was no way she would be able to look at him and not remember that. If the rest of the village wanted him to live, she actually wanted him dead. "Surely, someone in a better position…"

"I will hear no objections," the elder said. "That is the word of the Shikimoribito." His face softened. "It is a very light punishment. I suggest you accept it and not complain."

Her younger sister looked at her, begging Honoka to _please, pretty please, take him in, if not for your sake then for mine_. The other refugees were also looking at her, goading her with their eyes.

She wanted to scream, and she screamed in her soul. None of them understood. None of them knew what had passed between the two of them. She would never tell them, but she could not bring herself to do what they wanted her to do. Not to him.

The elder understood, though. He knew it would be more torture to do this than to keep her in solitary confinement or to drive her out of the camp.

She sighed. The punishment was just. "Yes, dear elder, I accept."

……………………………

Man, I'm getting rusty. But thanks for reading. This will be a short thing. Hoping to finish in the next few days, if I don't get toxic.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello. Second chapter.

Disclaimers again: I own nothing except this story and the wasted time I could have spent reading the ECG book. I'm just a lowly medical clerk who isn't an expert at the things I describe below.

You may notice that I keep using pronouns. I am intentionally trying to maintain some distance from the character who may be talking in this story eventually, just not the way you might want. If I do use it, you see, with him like this, I just might break down and cry instead of write, hehe. It's a defense mechanism I find that most of us clerks use, using code names or last names or no names for patients, maintaining some distance, to keep ourselves sane. Even if samurai walk away from death, it doesn't mean they are not affected by it. Same goes with doctors and nurses, and people studying to be doctors and nurses.

………………………………….

She never expected him to be so thin.

Most of them thought that he was a bit chubby, at least. He ate a lot at every meal, she recalled. But under the thick coat, well-filled jacket, and baggy pants, he was small. Not tight, not wiry. But smaller than she thought. He was not even very muscular, like the other samurai. She sighed.

Even the youngest one – Katsushiro-sama, yes, that was his name, the one who got injured – if she were just a little younger, she might have gone dreamy-eyed over him like the other village girls did. Katsushiro-sama had well-toned arms, and pretty good pectorals. So did Kanbei-sama, Shichiroji-sama…Gorobei-sama. She was not blind. Jaded, maybe, but not blind.

But this stripling of a person stretched out on a cot – she hated even his body.

She could not make herself leave him, though. She had to stay there, while the hooded medical man gave instructions to a group of knowledgeable villagers in preparing the young man for surgery. He was too badly injured. They had to operate on him to stabilize him. They took off all his clothes, peeled off all the layers of cloth that hid most of himself from the world.

There was nothing to like, to appreciate. His arms, no longer hidden under a padded coat, were thin and bony. His legs were much the same. His abdomen was slightly rounded, too soft. He was a self-confessed geek, and he had the physical frame to prove it. Even the most hidden part of the human male…was not special. He was weak, through and through.

"Get some sleep," one of the assistants told her. "This will be a long operation. And you have a tiring job ahead of you."

"Find someone else to do this," she answered the assistant, her eyes pleading, but her face stern.

"There is no one else we can spare, Honoka, I'm sorry," the assistant said. "It's harvest season, remember?"

"You mean I'm useless during the harvest?"

"I don't mean it that way. But you're the one who knows him best, from before. You're in the best position to care for him. Please?"

"Why not Mizuki?" The girl was practically begging for the job, anyway.

"Of course you and Mizuki can take turns," the assistant replied.

"That's not what I said. Why not Mizuki?"

"Orders from the Shikimoribito, remember? Sorry about all this, Honoka, really."

She sighed and went to bed.

In her dreams she kept seeing those eyes that were staring and glaring at her, then looking away, especially after she had been found out. They were accusing eyes, eyes that kept warning her that she deserved no second chances, even if she was granted a second chance. She wanted him to die. She wanted those eyes to stop accusing her of treason. But she realized that she would continue to have those dreams about him with a sword ready to swipe down on her, even if he died. It was not fair. Life was not fair.

She was shaken awake by Mizuki, who went with her to where he was allowed to rest. Bandages and gauze were over his abdomen. He still looked terrible, though. His face was still white, his hands still too yellow.

The man who had operated on him had done so without the restrictive body suit of the Shikimoribito. Now that the operation was done, he donned the body suit again, and approached Honoka. He placed back the hood over his head. "We have done the best we could for him, just to keep him alive and safe," the man said. "There is more yet to be done. But we have to wait until he could take it. Keep a close eye on him. He is still not out of danger."

She was given the instructions. They were instructions she had heard before, for other similar cases, but they had to repeated to her now. She wanted to know the limits of what she had to do. She would only do that. No more, and no less.

Check the heart rate and breathing, every fifteen minutes, for as long as the numbers she gets keep changing. Pump the pressure cuff and get the blood pressure, every fifteen minutes, for as long as the numbers keep changing. Warn them about any major changes. Check the temperature, every fifteen minutes, for as long as the numbers keep changing. If he gets feverish, dip a towel in cold water and pass the towel through him.

Simple in execution. Sheer torture in execution. It was simple to do. It was the monotony of doing it, the exhaustion of doing it every few moments, the feeling of being both useful and useless, that was torture.

For most people, the fifteen-minute intervals had to be maintained for only two hours. After that, one only needed to check on the person every hour, then every four hours, then maybe every meal time. But his temperature kept rising, his heart kept beating too quickly, his breathing was too fast, and his blood pressure was plummeting. She had to keep up the moment-by-moment checking for four hours. It would have been easier without the sponge baths, but she had to keep that up, too, and it was that aspect that exhausted her the most.

It was the sponge baths that she hated with all her heart and soul. Despite being given a few injections of antibiotics and fever medicine, he was still warmer than he should have been. She was forced to constantly dip her hands in a basin of cold water, and wring out a small towel in it. She had to hold the towel over his sallow face, and wipe away the sweat that formed over his forehead. She had to place her hand, with the towel, over that small, thin body she despised. She had to move that towel down the bony arms, across the part she could barely call a chest.

The worst part of it all was this: he was still unconscious. He would never know she gone through such trouble for his sake, and unwillingly. She would never be thanked for doing all that. Because he would never know.

At least he would have no idea how much she wanted to place that towel over his face, and keep it there, until he suffocated.

His face just made her remember that she betrayed the samurai, people she had actually admired from the moment she met them. It made her remember that the justice he wanted was INDEED just, that it was but right that he chop her head off for deceiving them.

"Stop being so hard to take care of," she spoke to him already, in desperation. "Stop that fever from spiking. I'm sick and tired of having to deal with you. I just don't have a choice. I want to step away from you and leave you and never come back. So hurry up already and die or get better. Either way."

No reaction.

As expected.

If only it were HIM instead. Gorobei-sama. If only it were him instead. She would have suffered through all that, and more. If it were him instead. She imagined her hands touching his dark skin, feeling that long scar, wondering how he got it and where. She closed her eyes and dreamed of her hands running through that dark chest, a chest she had stolen a glance at just once while he was dressing, while the samurai were among them. It was his coat that she wanted to remove, piece by piece, article by article, until she saw only that dark, well-toned chest, those powerful arms, that graceful neck. If only it were him instead.

But she was stuck with the weak, gangly one. The one whose eyes bored into her conscience.

Punishment from heaven could not have been more painful.

She calmly and systematically recorded. "Heart rate has slowed to 90 beats. No longer panting. Fever has gone down, at last. Blood pressure now stable." Then she added silently, "At last, I can get away from you."

Her sister patted her on the shoulder, and she wrapped her arms around Honoka's neck. "Come on, nee-san, get some rest," Mizuki told her. "Let us other girls take over now. Don't you think you've done enough?"

Honoka actually thought she had already done too much.

……………………….

A gearhead fan enumerating the gearhead's weak points. Horrible of me, I know. But thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello. Third chapter.

Disclaimers: 1. Yes, I am channeling my medical clerk self through this story, sorry. 2. I own this story and my wasted time, but nothing else related to Samurai 7. 3. He stays a pronoun, I'm really sorry, but that's the way it goes. As I explained, the slight depersonalization is what keeps me sane enough to keep up this story.

Well, now. He gets to talk, after all.

………………………………

She took out a small flashlight and peeled open his eyelids. She swung the light over his eyes. The pupils were reacting to the light. His brain, ultimately, was still fine. Just taking some time to heal fully. She placed a fist over his breastbone, and pressed. He groaned for a bit, opened his eyes, then closed them again, like nothing happened. Still stuporous. Still unconscious, very slowly rising out of it. It will take a while yet, she sighed.

The fever had already gone, thankfully. A combination of antibiotics, fever medicine, and diligent if unwilling sponge baths had done its work. A few bags of blood into his system had also added color to his face. But he was still unresponsive and unconscious. A frustrating situation. He was stable, but not out of danger. Besides, the medical officer said there were still a few operations to do to him yet.

It was getting VERY boring having to be with the young man. It was now the second day. Two days of almost no one to talk to except her own thoughts and her own conscience. She was used to being left alone with her thoughts, but it was terrible to have the object of her thoughts in front of her. Completely under her power, helpless if she tried to take his life, ungrateful if she tried to save his life.

Mizuki took over for her, for about five hours, while she slept. It was during the day, anyway, when the others visited and other assistants helped with things about his care that she did not know how to do.

He did not leave her thoughts, even in her dreams.

……………………………

_He walked beside her, behind everyone else, back to the village. He kept giving her angry glances. _

_It was terrible how he made it so simple. It was a case of betrayal, and treason was punishable by death. It did not matter if she did it not out of malice, merely because she wanted to save her sister. Treason was punishable by death. _

_He had waited for the other samurai to walk inside the hut where Katsushiro-sama still was. Then he grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer to himself. _

"_I'm keeping an eye on you, girl," he told her. "If ever I see you alone sending off a messenger lizard, I don't care if you're a woman…I'll drive a dagger through you." _

_But she saw his eyes. They were scared. His lips were shaking as he said those words. She saw cold sweat somewhat hidden under the leather cap. And she felt the hand that held her grow cold and clammy. _

"_My name is Honoka," she challenged, "and I will appreciate it if you call me as such, SIR." _

_He released his iron grip. "Tough lady," he wiped the sweat off his forehead and grinned. "Is that why you're not married yet?" _

_She did not look at him. "Marriage is not on my mind right now. I want to get my sister back safe and sound. That is my highest priority now. I will do anything to have that happen." _

"_Yeah, we've seen it, haven't we?" he said. _

_She bowed her head. _

"_I saw you with Gorobei-dono last night," he said with an icy smile. _

"_What is it to you, sir?" she faced him and answered. _

"_Just answer me one thing," he looked far up, at the stalactites above them. "Were you gathering information then? Against us, I mean?" _

"_No, on my honor," she replied. "I just wanted to talk. He let me talk. I am grateful." _

"_Look at me and tell me that." _

_She looked at him fully in the eyes, and repeated. "I just wanted to talk, he let me talk. That is all." _

"_Okay. I believe you." _

"_Why?" _

"_The eyes. The face. The same one you gave Kanbei-sama. Finally you were telling the whole truth." _

"_How do you know that?" she asked. _

_He bowed his head as he walked away. "Takes one to know one." _

…………………

She never understood what he meant by that, and she never got a chance to ask.

She pressed on the breastbone again. But unlike before, a slight touch made him open his eyes at her.

"Hello," she greeted.

The eyes stayed open.

"I don't know what to say," she said. "Anything hurting?"

He drifted off to sleep again.

She sighed. "At least that's better than before."

It was hard to recall this half-dead, half-reactive person before her was the same person. With him like that, it did not feel right, or even worth while, to inflict punishment he would not remember, to cause pain he would not feel.

She whacked her forehead. Why did she feel like this about him? She was not normally so sadistic against any person, even those who had wronged her. She did not feel like this against the Nobuseri who razed her village, or those who took away her sister.

Maybe it was because he was reachable, he was near, and he was vulnerable. It took everything she had in her soul not to take advantage of that. Maybe that was why she was angry. She was angry at herself.

She thought like this for the next few hours, while she checked him every hour, flashing the small light through his eyes, pressing his breastbone and waiting for a response.

She remembered how sad and how bitter he looked that night, that night he mentioned, when he saw her talking with Gorobei-sama. He did not mean to intrude, from the looks of things. He just ran into them while strolling through the village that night. What was he thinking then? Did he already suspect her of sending the messages that early, ahead of everyone else? Did he see them by mistake? What did he feel about her then? There was no way of knowing.

It did send her mind drifting off to Gorobei-sama again. He accepted her without reservation, and still accepted her without malice even after they found out about her spying. And it was true what she said. They just talked together, compared stories of life as a wandering entertainer, and of life as a farmer in a faraway village. They exchanged stories of the impact of the war on their lives. She was unable to tell him about her sister then, because that was when the redhaired samurai found them sitting together under a sap tree.

She sniffed a little, and shed a few tears. Gorobei-sama should not have died. It was not his time yet. He had wanted to return to visit her after the battle was over.

As she wiped the tears, she looked down at her redhaired patient. He had opened his eyes again.

"Hello," she greeted. "Do you feel alright?"

He nodded, weakly.

She was mildly surprised, already used to the drowsy responses. "Can you move your arms?"

He slowly, weakly, raised one hand, moved it around. Then the other hand. He kept looking at her.

"Do you…do you know where you are?"

He gave her a blank look. His eyes were beginning to droop again.

"Do you know…who I am?"

His eyes closed. He went back to sleep.

"You will eventually remember me," she whispered over him. "When that time comes…will you have forgiven me?"

……………………………

I'm glad that this story makes some kind of sense to you guys. I was rather afraid that the ventings of a medical clerk would be useless to anyone else. As usual, thanks for reading. See ya soon.


	4. Chapter 4

Hiya. Chapter 4. This took a while, because I've already moved from ICU to the floors, and there was more paperwork and other stuff to do.

Disclaimers again: I'm a half-crazy medical clerk channeling frustration, Samurai 7 ain't mine but this story is, he's still a pronoun but that may change, as you might notice with the current progression of things.

…………………………

"Save…yourself…go already…save yourself…"

It was now the fourth day of her sentence, and each day had been different from the previous one, each one posing its new punishment to her.

Today began with the most difficult challenge yet. The young man began tossing and turning, rather violently, calling out and shouting. Nothing that was said calmed him; nothing that was said even reached him yet. He kept waving his arms and shaking his head, calling out to someone to "Save…yourself…"

"Calm down! Calm down, please!" She desperately held down his shoulders. But he was stronger than her and managed to wrench free.

"Go…away! Leave me!" he kept saying. "Save yourself!"

"But who?" she asked. "Save who?"

He suddenly stopped and panted, his forehead soaked in cold sweat.

She quickly waved the light over his eyes, checked his pulse and breathing. His heart was beating much too quickly and he was breathing much too fast, but his eyes were responding to her light…he even shut his eyelids tightly and turned his head away. Everything seemed better from the medical officer's point of view, Honoka thought, the way she had been told. But she was worried about him, thrashing about and such. His healing brain was worried about something, and she did not know how to help out.

Funny, how she was worried about him now. How, just a few days ago, she did not care.

Poor Honoka was at a loss what to do. "Can't you make him sleep, at least?" she begged the medical officer.

"Yes, we could," came the answer, "but we have to be sure he is already stable. If he isn't, he dies. Can he take it now, in your opinion?"

She was worried, yes. But she was still callous. "Yes." Live or die, it did not matter to her what happened to him.

"Very well."

The medical officer called in a few other people, who arrived with a syringe filled with a clear substance. As a group of brawny men held the redhaired young man at the head, arms, and legs, the officer drove the needle into the patient. The officer and the men then backed away and left.

He shook his head and waved his arms for a while longer. But the movements became slower, and the screams softened to whispers. "Katsu…kun…get away…save…yourself…" Finally he drifted off in a sedated slumber.

"Katsu?" Honoka asked her sister, who helped wipe off the sweat on his forehead. "Does he mean Katsushiro-sama?"

"Probably," Mizuki answered her.

"What happened?"

"I don't know, nee-san, I'll go ask around," her sister said, and walked off to find those she needed to ask.

Thus, Honoka was left alone again with a silent, still, almost lifeless human. She sighed.

One thing concerned her, though, and she knew that it was making the medical officer worried as well. In his thrashing about, all that moved were his head, arms, and torso. His legs did not move at all. The officer showed her the body scans. His spine had been partly crushed. The first operation was only to save what could be saved of his internal organs. They still had not addressed the fact that he was paralyzed from the waist down.

The feisty fire-haired mechanic, not being able to walk. For some reason, she found a life for him that way as very terrible. It would be just punishment for the pain he had caused others, condemning them without hearing them out. He would be condemned without being heard, for being a liability.

She should have been rubbing her hands in glee. She was not. She felt sorry for him. She did not know why.

Mizuki returned with news. "Well, according to the Shikimoribito, they found him pressed under a Raiden cannon. The cannon was part of the stuff that fell when the bottom half of the floating capital was separated from the main ship. That's about it. I still don't know why he was calling out to Katsushiro-sama, though."

He probably heard the last sentence. His eyes opened, and he began to look up and around him. "Katsushiro-kun…go already…you've done enough…don't worry about…me…"

Honoka sighed, as she ran her hand through his hair and shushed him. "Where is Katsushiro-sama now? Dead or alive?"

Mizuki smiled. "Alive. But he was REALLY shaken by it all, the Shikimoribito said." She shook her head. "Poor guy…"

"Shaken?"

Mizuki explained. "They said they found Katsu-sama in the fields, just where the floating capital fell. He was just…LOOKING…at those fields, they said. He was mumbling something….someone's name…"

Honoka pointed at her patient.

"Maybe," Mizuki answered, "but they couldn't make out what he was saying."

The young man suddenly reached up. "Not yet…not this way…I wanna live. I wanna eat rice…I wanna live!"

Honoka grabbed at his hand with her own two hands. She held on as he continued to wave the arm just above his chest. She brought the arm down to the bed, and held on tightly. "But you are alive. Do you understand me? You did live."

"Katsu…Katsu…" he wailed.

"He's alright….he's alright…" She placed her head over his hand, and rubbed his arm. "He's alright."

"Katsu?"

"Yes, Mizuki said he's alright. Now go back to sleep. Everything is alright."

That was not exactly true. But it would have to do for now. Anything to keep him quiet.

He squeezed her hand, and continued to hold her hand, as he drifted off again.

……………………………………

The next evening, they began the operation on his spine, to salvage what they could of his spinal cord.

The operation went well, but as with the first operation, the wait was long. Honoka went to sleep, but her sleep was disturbed by all his screams that she kept hearing in her head. She dreamed up what Mizuki described to her: the floating capital disintegrating, the lower half of the ship falling in one huge piece, his small and weak body crushed under a cannon, and his screams as the capital exploded.

The recovery phase afterward was long was well. Once again she had to check heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, eye response, for a good many hours. For many hours she was alone with her thoughts, now more about her patient than about anything else.

Most of it was about his future. What would happen to him after he got well? What would his life be? He lived alone, and moved alone. With all the work done to him, living alone would now be impossible.

The Shikimoribito realized this as well, she realized. She was summoned to a council of the masked leaders. The topic was the redhaired patient.

"As you know, the territory of the Shikimoribito is open to everyone. It is neutral to all territories. However, even you realize that our resources here have limits. We take in those who need to be taken in, but only if they have nowhere else to go, as was in your case. In regard to the case of our young samurai, we have the option to report him as alive and give him over to Kanna. The transfer will occur in two weeks, once he is stable enough to move on his own. Are you agreeable to this?"

Actually, it would have been better. He would be out of her life, and she would never see him again.

But something made her say no.

"Please. Let him stay here."

"Are you sure about your request, Honoka?" the elder asked as the Shikimoribito looked on.

No, she was not sure. But she remembered that thin, weak body subjected again to the elements of nature, and now even more weakened by operations to organs and spinal cord. "Yes, please, let him stay here. At least he can be cared for better here."

"There are no more free huts. He would have to live with you."

She had already managed to be with him for five days. All the terrible thoughts she could think about him had already been thought, and she had no more angry thoughts left to give him. Having him around for a little while longer, until the time he might decide to leave, no longer bothered her.

"This was a punishment, Honoka. You are accepting the sentence for a longer period. Are you sure?" the elder kindly asked.

"Mizuki will help me." That was all she said.

"Very well, Honoka. As you wish. But there is no turning back on this decision."

"I understand."

The council was dismissed.

The medical officer and a group of three followed Honoka back to where the young man was placed.

They found him looking around the room, no longer with a blank stare, but knowingly. He felt his head, and looked down at his toes. He tried to sit up, then howled in pain.

Honoka was quickly by his side and lowered him back to the bed. "Take it easy, Heihachi-sama."

He panted for a while, then looked up at Honoka.

Honoka distinctly saw his shock and terror upon seeing her face. "Are you sure you know who I am?" he asked with wide eyes. "Because I'm the one who wanted to….."

"That's in the past, Heihachi-sama, and I deserved it," she answered calmly.

The medical officer approached him. The officer checked his eyes, asked him to lift his arms, asked if he could feel his legs, asked if he knew where he was. The samurai answered the questions as best as he knew. The questions were rather straightforward, anyway.

But he still looked rather confused, as the Shikimoribito left the bed, and Honoka was left alone with him again. He did not know what to ask. "Um, um, how…"

"There were a few of them who rode to Kanna soon after all of you left – as a precaution, according to one of the leaders here," Honoka began to explain. "He said they would help should the help be needed. They did not intervene, because the five of you had things under control, they told us. They were supposed to go back already, when they found you, unconscious and bleeding."

He looked away. Honoka saw that he had clenched one of his hands into a tight fist. "They should've left me…"

But Honoka continued to explain. "They found you pressed under a heavy pillar, among the debris left by the capital. They were the ones who got you out. When they saw you were still breathing, just barely, they stopped what of the bleeding they could, did other emergency measures, and rushed you here."

"You don't understand….." he muttered between tightly clenched teeth. He pounded his fist onto the bed.

"So that's the story, so far. Report has it that you and your friends won. Amanushi is dead. Kanna is safe."

He shouted. "You don't understand!" He pounded hard on the bed with his fists. "You don't understand."

What was wrong with him? Was he still delirious? What was going on? How should she handle this situation? She decided to play along. "No, I do not understand. Please explain."

He kept staring at her, seething and sarcastic. "Or maybe you do understand." He grinned a terrible grin at her, then frowned. "Haven't you felt that? Haven't you felt so sick of yourself for being a traitor that you want to stop living? Haven't you felt sorry that you couldn't take it back, do something good for a change?"

What he said did…not…sink…in. Why…why…why did he know what was going through her head? Why did he know? Could he read her mind?

He looked at her with pained, angry eyes, then shouted at her. "I had that chance. You took it away from me. The chance to finally do something good, then die. The chance to pay back my betrayal. You stole that from me!"

HIS betrayal? What was he saying? "But, it wasn't….."

"Now I have to keep living with myself. Worse, I have to be a burden to someone now."

He stared at the stalactites, and clenched his teeth.

He did feel it. That just punishment. That terrible sentence. Of being alive, but no longer being in control.

Still, it stung. To have been forced to care for someone who did not want to be cared for in the first place, for someone who wanted to be dead as much as she wanted him dead. She had wasted her sleepless nights and her lonely hours, on someone who did not care.

There was only one thing she could tell him.

"Ungrateful jerk."

She tossed her head, raised her nose, turned around, and walked out the door. She walked to a tree, the tree where she sat together with the tall, dark entertainer. She sat there again, hidden from the underwater lake, from her sister, and from the rest of the village.

"A jerk…a jerk! Such a jerk!"

She slowly and calmly wiped the tears that managed to fall from her eyes.

"And I don't know why…why…I didn't let him…die…"

……………………………

Those of you who read "Tenshi" will of course recognize the last part of this chapter as being old stuff.

This will be done by the next chapter. I don't have much left to say, anyway, and my rotation in the internal medicine department will soon be over. Thank you for reading, and I hope you come back for the last chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

Last chapter.

Thanks for reading a medical student's rigmarole. As usual, only the story is mine, and I'm thankful that you read it. Some of the stuff here is derived from Reiya Inc.'s "Purge", which is currently the best rendition of THAT series of events, even better than mine. The rest of it is elaboration on stuff that is in "Tenshi".

……………………….

They said nothing to each other. He silently winced through the pain, crying out only when he could no longer stop himself from screaming.

Honoka was helping him sit up. A painful undertaking for someone with surgery to his internal organs and to his back. But he did not complain, and he did not talk to her. She tried to be careful, but it was hard to judge at any given moment what part of him would hurt. Besides, it gave her some satisfaction in his pain. She was being sadistic, but she felt repaid for all the hard work she had gone through for him.

She was glad that he was better…only because she did not have to care for him so closely. Or that was what she told herself. Something inside her was glad he was better, period.

One last thing was left to be done to him. They just had to remove some of the fastening devices they had left on him. After that, he would learn how to stand and walk again. This time, he was conscious, since it was easier and less painful. But less painful did not mean painless. Honoka watched as he cringed and clenched his teeth. She had a few cloths ready for him, as he leaned back on the bed, drenched in sweat. Once again she ran her hands through his fiery hair and his tired face.

One by one the Shikimoribito left, having finished their work. Finally she was alone to clean up the mess. She sighed. Surgeons. They were always like that, leaving people to clean up after them. He watched in silence as she worked around the room, picking up the used instruments and collecting them into a container.

She was taking away the used bandages and gauze, when he spoke.

"Honoka-san."

She looked back, very slowly. She also spoke very slowly. "Yes, sir?"

"Could you sit down, please?"

Without a word, she took up a stool and sat beside him.

He was still breathing heavily, but the panting was slowing. He looked away. "Now, see here. It's not that I don't appreciate everything you've done so far, Honoka-san. It's just that…"

She finished the sentence. "You don't deserve it?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Yes. You don't."

He chuckled. "Now that's blunt."

She said nothing.

"Um…I'd like to tell you something, Honoka-san."

"Alright." She placed both hands on her lap, and faced him.

He continued. "I was ground crew in the last war. You know, in the fighting, but not expected to fight. Safe position. But then…but then…the enemy bombarded our base, took down everything they could within sight. They killed all the soldiers, burned down all the facilities. And when they found nothing more…they found us. They found me."

She was listening. She watched as he held on to the blanket, rather tightly.

"They gave me only one choice: either I told them where the other units escaped, or they would kill me."

Honoka finally understood. "You told them."

He nodded.

"Then?" she asked.

"I was part of the side that eventually won the war. Investigations were done. Soon they found out I had ratted to the enemy. They dragged me out to an open clearing, threw me down to the ground, planted my face on the muddy soil. Traitors…" he took a deep breath before he continued. "They said traitors should not be allowed to live."

Honoka could not make herself look at him.

"But it was just us soldiers and ground crew then, no superiors. As one of those soldiers raised a sword over my head, another one blocked it. He told me to get up, to run, to never come back. So, I did. For years." He ran a hand through his red hair. "It was a fading memory already, you know. Then you showed up, and Manzo, too."

All she could say was, "I see."

"I know that doesn't explain what I did to you back then…but, maybe you could see where I'm coming from…"

She nodded slightly.

"Um…I don't expect to be forgiven or anything like that."

"You don't have to apologize," she said.

"It's just that…it's just that…you know…some things get stuck in you, and it keeps getting pressed down, pressure adds to it…and…you see, it's just like in a pressure chamber, you know….universal gas law…finite space, increasing temperature…increasing pressure…"

Actually, Honoka did not understand any of his last words, but she did understand the pressure. It was partly why she had grown so stiff and serious, even she knew that. She was always afraid of being found out, of being caught, by the people and the community who had been always kind to her. It all spilled out as her tears flowed in front of Kanbei-sama and the other samurai.

"Things should've followed the basic law of physics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Those who have committed crime should have accepted punishment. But it was different for me. And for you. And it did not make sense. It didn't, it didn't!" He patted his abdomen. "I should've paid for my crime against so many of my friends back then, in that explosion. Oh, well. I guess living is my punishment."

The way that caring for her accuser had been Honoka's punishment.

Although she no longer thought of it that way.

There were no words she could tell him after that. She was not good with words in the first place, and any words she wanted to say did not seem appropriate. She went to a corner where beddings were placed. She returned with a blanket. This she gave to him, said goodnight, and went to bed.

He remained generally quiet after that, at least, in her presence. With other people he slowly returned to being the cheerful and bubbly young man they had met. With her he remained cautious. He kept giving her sideglances and watching her movements.

"Can't blame him, nee-san, just think of it that way," Mizuki told her. "Although…he might be…no, I think I'd better not…"

"Alright, Mi-chan, what do you know?" Honoka asked her sister.

"Oh, nothing! Nothing!" Mizuki giggled.

"Mizuki…"

"He's not planning anything dangerous. Happy now?"

She shook her head and did not ask any further.

But she did wonder why she heard the tinkling of metal objects late into the night for the next few days. She peered through the curtain separating their bedroom from his, and found him at his workbench with an open toolbox and a headlight on his forehead, working at something she could not make out. She shrugged. Maybe it was just something the other farmers asked him to make, something to keep him busy. She heard the tink-tink-clunk of metal objects for about a week. She always went to bed with that noise in her head. But it made him happy, so she ignored the noises.

On one midnight, the noise changed into a little tinkling melody, repeated over and over. It sounded like a little song that was once popular in her village, her home village. At first she ignored it – Mizuki was probably still awake and humming the tune. But the tinkling melody continued, and undeniably continued to play that little village song. It came from his side of the hut. Curiosity got the better of her, and she drew back the curtain.

He was seated, leaned back on his chair, his chest heaving slowly up and down, in front of his workbench. The melody was coming from a small object. It was illuminated by the small overhead lamp at his workbench. She walked a little closer, and she saw it. A music box.

She tiptoed closer to the workbench, until she stood beside him. He was fast asleep, exhausted, but with a smile on his face.

She looked down on the workbench. She saw a small metal box, with a small doll in a simple white dress twirling and dancing on top. It was almost exactly like the music box she had back home…back when life was simple and happy, when bandits were far from their thoughts. Her father had bought it for her on one of his trips to town, when she was a little girl, even before Mizuki was born. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she was unable to stop a few of them from falling down her cheeks. She missed her old life, her father, her mother, her house, her village. She missed them all.

But she realized that, finally, she had something from her old life, something tangible, something to remind her to keep on while remembering the past. Everything they had was burned down, and even Mizuki was taken. Now she had at least one little thing to remind her of the good old days.

Then she eventually realized that this was what he had been doing for the last few nights. Something, for her.

She wrapped a blanket around him. She moved her hands across his face, the contours she had became too familiar with from constant rubbing with a damp towel. She placed them over his eyes, the eyes she had pried open to check if he was still alive. Her hands went to down to his neck, and to his chest, the one she had despised so much.

A hand went back to his neck, just below his chin. She pressed. If he only knew, if he only knew, how many times she did that, how many times she wanted to press harder.

But she always stopped herself, and she did not know why. Maybe it was his eyes. Maybe it was his labored breathing through the fever. Maybe it was that thought that death would be too good for him.

She heard the tinkling again. She took away her hand. She picked up the music box from the table.

"Father, why did you let our paths cross, him and me? Why?"

But it was not her father who answered him. It was another voice.

"Fate brings people together. It's not our place to ask why. It's OUR place to make the most of it."

Gorobei-sama.

"Take care of that crazy redhead, will you? We had great times."

She smiled, and promised him that she will.

Because even terrible situations could bring people together, in the most unusual ways.

………………………

Once again, thanks to those of you who read this, something I made to stop myself from going crazy.

EK out.


End file.
